Stacy's advice is good, it worked for us. Our lo would start to fuss the second he knew we were heading into the nursury for sleep time (he's a smart little cookie, he would squeal with glee when he knew we were going in for a diaper change!) He is just 20 weeks old now. We changed a few things to work things out. First off, at about 1.5-1.45 into his A time, depending on the time of day (usually can't last as long in the morning as the afternoon) we walk him around the house either in our arms, singng and talking or if I have something to get down, in a snuggli. Sometimes he'll yawn, sometimes not. After about 10 min of this, we go up to the nursery and on the way we talk to him about how we are going to have a nice sleep. If he is getting really tired, sometimes he'll fuss a little when we go in but by the time I close the door, draw the blinds and put him down in his crib to get swaddled, he smiles, I think because he finally understands it's time to sleep. For a long time we first would put him in bed and just pat shh until he would sleep. This would take about 20 min. Then we started to hold him and pat/ssh until he would stop fussing because we were tired of him always crying when he went down. For a while this worked great, less than 5 min but slowly as he approached 4 months it became less and less effective. Finally, we altered the routine a little so that once we were in the room with the blinds drawn we would either walk him around or sit in the chair and talk quietly/read a story to settle a little more or if he was getting really sleepy would swaddle him up in the crib and then pick him up and talk or sing for another minute or two before settling him in bed for a sleep. Now, a few weeks later, often we don't even pick him up that last time, he is already content to go to sleep. He rarely cries when we put him down now. He will usually now coo and "talk" for a few minutes, then start to fuss a little and kick his legs together on the mattress for a few times and then he is out. I now know these sounds are his way of settling to sleep and he rarely falls asleep just at the cooing stage. But he is happy and does it on his own, he usually doesn't even want us to stay there with him, as once in a while when he is overly fussy and we stay to try to reassure him, he doesn't settle until we leave! All in all, I think he just got fed up with us holding him to settle, he was telling us "mom and dad, I'm ready to try this on my own now, thanks!"
Hope this helps!
